[WSIS CS-Plenary] Spam as an issue

[Martin Olivera]

I find the bottom-up technique against spam proposed
in this message from Michael, it is not only a good
idea, but the only that is not restricting my freedom
to receive spam if I want, and is based on trust
(community trust) instead of central regulation -a bad
solution approach who may lead us to policies of
privacy violation and content filtering-.

 --- "Gurstein, Michael" <gurstein at ADM.NJIT.EDU>
escribió: 
>  
> 
> I think the issue of "spam" and "spam control" is
> highly interesting
> particularly for what it reveals about the implicit
> frameworks
> concerning overall Internet related issues.  
>  
> Spam is and can be approached from a technical and a
> legal/regulatory
> perspective--that is, what are the centrally (top
> down) determined,
> centrally (top down) implemented and centrally (top
> down) controlled
> approaches to the problem of spam--what filters do
> ISP's put in place,
> what laws do central authorities implement, what
> banishment do central
> monitors impose and so on.  
>  
> An alternative approach to spam control, which in
> fact seems to be far
> more powerful and certainly more cost-effective is a
> 'bottom-up"
> strategy which has users either individually or more
> usefully
> collaboratively, establishing mechanisms for
> identifying and diverting
> spam messages as they are being received.
>  
> The way this seems to be working is that individuals
> identify messages
> they consider spam, they set up a filter against
> that message which then
> is shared with other people. As the network (on-line
> community) of those
> sharing their filters grows, the grid of filtering
> against the spam
> messaging grows apace and there is no particular
> need to have central
> authorities to identify and track/attack spammers
> (an approach unlikely
> to be effective in any case given the ease with
> which spammers can
> change their addresses, the very low entry costs to
> spamming and so
> on... (I saw a note pass by a few weeks ago which
> indicated that the
> cost of identifying and running to ground a single
> spammer was in the
> $40,000K US range, and this doesn't include the
> legal costs of
> attempting to try and convict each individual
> spammer...).
>  
> However, recognizing that spam is a problem which is
> probably best
> controlled through (bottom up) on-line communities
> and networks doesn't
> seem to have filtered into those who treat the
> Internet with all its
> transformational elements as simply another ground
> for regulatory
> business as usual, or who see a way of making a buck
> by providing
> technology (overkill) solutions for what are
> essentially
> "social"/community problems.
>  
> To extend this further I'm seeing a similar "divide"
> in the Finance for
> the Information Society area, where the bulk of the
> efforts seems to be
> in finding ways of funding governments or
> (centralized) multilateral
> agencies or NGO's to develop top down delivery
> programs rather than ways
> of channeling funds and expertise to communities to
> help them develop
> local solutions to access and related issues. 
>  
> In the end of course, there will never ever be
> enough funds for top down
> centrally administered solutions -- the technology
> moves too fast -- and
> in the end there is an endless number of potential
> (even socially
> worthy) beneficiaries.  But to set up processes
> where communities are
> enabled to achieve access and effective use based on
> their application
> of local resources in relation to local needs (with
> of course, the
> availability of some type of technical
> infrastructure--IMHO the
> appropriate use of centralized capacity and resource
> commitment), that
> should be do-able even within a context of limited
> donor interest and
> financial committments.
>  
> Best,
>  
> Mike Gurstein
>  
> Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
> Clinical Professor: School of Management
> Research Profesor: School of Computing and
> information Science
> New Jersey Institute of Technology
> Newark, NJ
>  
> (Interim) Chair: Community Informatics Research
> Network
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org on behalf of
> avri at acm.org 
> Sent: Fri 28/01/2005 11:20 AM 
> To: plenary at wsis-cs.org 
> Cc: 
> Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Spam as an issue
> 
> 
> 
> Hi, 
> 
> I would like to explore the issue of Spam as an IG
> issue. 
> 
> My instinct all along is that this isn't an issue
> that belongs to 
> Internet governance, but since many, if not most,
> other people on the 
> WGIG and the CS think it is, I want to explore my
> reasoning and find 
> out where I am missing the point. 
> 
> When I look at Spam, and I do get a lot of it, I see
> two problems a 
> technical problem and a legal problem. 
> 
> In terms of the technology, if I have the correct
> protection software 
> and my filters are well written I don't ever see 90%
> of it unless I 
> want to; it goes into a folder I glance through
> periodically to make 
> sure the nets haven't caught something I actually
> want.  In this 
> regard, as a user I don't need to differentiate
> between legitimate fund 
> raisers, legitimate bulk business mail, pornography
> or whatever.  It is 
> all junk I do not want and it is easy to take care
> of. 
> 
> In terms of other technical issues, there is a
> growing natural barrier 
> to Spam.  As service providers block prefixes that
> generate a lot of 
> spam, allowing spam to leave a network becomes a
> technical problem for 
> the service provider, how to provide egress
> filtering.  Again this can 
> be solved by technical methods and the prefix
> blocking provides a 
> natural incentive for those who allow spam to stop
> it locally. 
> 
> Finally there are the bandwidth and intermediate
> storage burdens.  I 
> tend to see these as market forces that determine
> the requirements 
> either for ways to filter or ways to charge for
> legitimate bulk mail 
> and to make settlements based on those charges. 
> And while the issue of settlements is something I
> think is an IG issue, 
> I don't see how Spam can be differentiated from
> other bandwidth issues 
> in this respect. 
> 
> I mentioned that I see some of the Spam issue as a
> legal problem.  
> There are things that are considered illegal by
> different 
> jurisdictions; in some places pornography, in some
> places phishing, in 
> some cases hate speech, and in some places political
> dissent (not sure 
> I can always tell the difference between the last
> two).  In most cases 
> these are matters for local jurisdiction and fodder
> for the push and 
> pull of legality, morality and freedom of
> expression.  One issue here 
> is that I don't see anything that is tractable for
> Internet Governance 
> here; do we want IG making proclamations about what
> is legal expression 
> 
=== message truncated === 

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